


Blink Once

by togekissies



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: M/M, mentions of bullying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-22
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-14 07:06:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2182479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togekissies/pseuds/togekissies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’ll—work hard, too.” Mihashi says finally. He looks at Kanou dead on, his eyes bold and determined beneath his timid shell. Ah, damn. This is the part of Mihashi Kanou finds the coolest, but also the scariest. If Mihashi is able to focus in the future, or get training, he really could become a world-class player. </p><p>-</p><p>Kanou and Mihashi share a shy kiss behind their middle school clubhouse one warm summer afternoon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blink Once

It’s summer, and Kanou’s shirt is plastered to his back with sweat. Thankfully there’s a pleasant breeze, and he quickly moves under the shade of the trees behind the clubroom. He sighs happily, fanning himself with the collar of his shirt. Mihashi follows behind, slightly slower, using up some mysterious reserve of energy on his constant fidgeting.

Their job is to crawl around the bushes and look for any softballs they can find. A job for pitchers who shouldn’t be doing physical work. The rest of the team sneers at Mihashi when they’re assigned this job, and will sometimes shove brooms or bags in his arms anyway, but Kanou enjoys these days. They’re quiet, and he doesn’t mind Mihashi. He does find it ridiculous that a private school makes the students scrounge for extra softballs, though.

“Alright,” he says to himself, but he feels Mihashi’s eyes on him when he speaks. He ignores it and starts pulling on the branches of the nearest bush. Soon enough Mihashi leaves him and starts looking on his own.

It’s peaceful. The rest of the team can be heard making plenty of noise on the other side of the building, but from years of practice Kanou tunes it out. He hears birds instead, along with the first cicadas of early summer. He feels the dirt beneath his fingernails, the rough sting of any branch that gets away from him, and the heat of the sun when the wind moves the trees out of the way. He smiles, a little.

“Kanou...” He gives it a few seconds before he looks at Mihashi. He’s holding a softball in each hand, one significantly dirtier than the other, as if it has spent plenty of time in the weather. “I-I’m going to... to put them under the tree.” Mihashi says while his eyes flicker from Kanou to the ground.

“Ah... okay.”

Satisfied, Mihashi turns and jogs to the tree he mentioned. Kanou’s a little miffed that Mihashi found some before him, but he reminds himself that this isn’t something to compete over. This is nothing. He turns back to his job, and soon the minutes melt away.

The two of them search the entire area, including well beyond the field even though they know just how few balls have actually been hit out there over their three years at Mihoshi. They come up with a paltry haul of only twelve softballs under the tree Mihashi started piling them. This isn’t going to save them much money, Kanou thinks to himself, and he snorts at his own joke. Mihashi is looking at him, like he always is whenever Kanou makes noise.

The afternoon is too nice and he feels too lazy to go back just yet. Kanou picks up one of the balls and tries to do what he saw a kid on the street do the other day. He throws the ball at the ground to try to bounce it up off the wall and back into his hand, but it flies weird from the loose dirt and just barely rolls to his feet. Mihashi flinches at the sound of the ball hitting the wall, of course, but he isn’t going back either.

Kanou winds up to try again, but he sees Mihashi’s fidgeting increase from the corner of his eye. He relaxes his pose and says, “What’s up?”

Mihashi flinches. “I—um,” he starts. “I think... y-your forkball i-is really cool, Kanou. It’s... it’s strong.”

This isn’t something he’s never said before, but Kanou smiles as if it’s the first he’s ever heard this compliment. “Isn’t it? Took a lot of practice to get the hang of it! I could still get better, though.”

Mihashi nods, then, as if he realizes he essentially told Kanou he needs more work, shakes his head furiously. Kanou laughs.

“I’ll—work hard, too.” Mihashi says finally. He looks at Kanou dead on, his eyes bold and determined beneath his timid shell. Ah, damn. This is the part of Mihashi Kanou finds the coolest, but also the scariest. If Mihashi is able to focus in the future, or get training, he really could become a world-class player.

Without thinking, Kanou walks up to Mihashi and grabs his hand. “You’ll—” You’ll do great, he almost says. Does he really want to say that? He stares at their hands while Mihashi looks increasingly more panicked. Kanou realizes that Mihashi was preparing to say something else before he grabbed him.

He knows he should let go, step back, and let Mihashi gather up his frazzled thoughts. But he wants to kiss him so badly his heart feels like it’s going to leap out of his chest. Kanou likes Mihashi. He’s known he likes Mihashi for maybe the entire time they’ve been in middle school, but he fights it down because they’re rivals, not friends. He likes Mihashi. He really likes Mihashi. And he really wants to kiss him.

Kanou gets halfway to Mihashi’s mouth before he loses all of his courage.

He loosens his grip on Mihashi’s hand. This was stupid. It’s getting late, they have a job to finish, and nothing was ever supposed to happen anyway. He’s about to apologize and pull away when Mihashi laces their fingers together. Then he leans—leans up, Kanou’s gotten taller recently—and brings his lips tentatively to Kanou’s.

Mihashi’s lips are very chapped, and he’s shaking. Kanou isn’t sure what to do, but he thinks maybe it would be nicer if their noses weren’t squished together, and tilts his head slightly. He feels more of Mihashi’s lips on his own this way, and warm feeling rolls over his entire body. Kissing Mihashi is much nicer than he imagined, not that he ever allowed himself time to think about it. Mihashi stops shaking and relaxes. Kanou wants to get closer to him.

From the other side of the clubhouse rings the clatter of metal bats on concrete. Someone shouts a “Sorry!” while someone else says “Just be careful next time!” and Kanou thinks his heart has stopped for good. He leaps away from Mihashi and looks around frantically, searching for spying teammates that aren’t there. There’s a strange weight in the hand that wasn’t holding Mihashi’s, which turns out to be the softball he forgot he was holding. Mihashi doesn’t move, save for his hand slowly raising to touch his own lips.

“I—” Kanou’s head is spinning with what he just did with one of his oldest friends. “I-I’m sorry, that was—” a mistake, he nearly says. Kanou dives for the pile of old softballs and scoops up as many as he can hold. He looks at Mihashi one last time. “Just—just forget it! Forget this ever happened.” Then he flees, running around the side of the clubhouse before he can see Mihashi start to cry, because he always cries.

Kanou slams his back into the wall and sinks to the ground. He takes a second to collect himself before he goes to greet the team. Out from under the shade the afternoon sun is bright in his eyes. Maybe any redness on his face will be assumed to be sunburn. He forces himself to breathe slowly and deeply until his pulse returns to normal. He stands up, jogs out to the clubhouse entrance, and leaves Mihashi alone to collect himself and join them half an hour later.

-

For the rest of the summer, they lose every official and practice game. In fall, they lose. In winter they’re not motivated, and in spring the only excitement comes from the team learning that Mihashi will not be moving to Mihoshi High with them. They say that now they’ll stop losing with Kanou pitching, and he snaps at them with more force than he would have a year earlier. But he hasn’t looked at Mihashi since the past summer, and he is a coward.

“I’m quitting,” Mihashi says quietly one day, when Kanou corners him in the school hallway and asks if he’ll play baseball at his new school. The ground has been ripped from under his feet, and Kanou feels like he’ll fall to the center of the earth.

“How will I beat you now?” he demands before he can stop himself.

Mihashi doesn’t look at him either, his eyes flicking from left to right instead. His head is bowed. “Y-you were always... b... better than m-me.”

That’s not true, it’s never been true, but Kanou doesn’t know how to make Mihashi believe that now. He grinds his teeth, clenches his fists so tightly his nails pierce his palm, and hot tears threaten to fall down his face. He messed up. This is all his fault. He says, “Fine,” then he leaves because he doesn’t know what else to do.

-

Hardy any time at all has passed and Kanou’s dream is about to come true. He can hardly keep himself from smiling as he looks over at Mihashi from the mound, where he’s warming up. Apparently the school Mihashi went to only just started up their baseball club. He wonders how they’ll work together, but he thinks they’ll be fine from the way they’re friendly with each other. Mihashi, on the other hand, is staring right at him.

Kanou smirks, and lets another pitch fly right into Hatake’s mitt.

Somewhere along the way Kanou realizes that whatever Mihashi was trying to say last summer was the same thing he tried to convey with that kiss. Oh well, he thinks. When he wins this game and proves that he’s a better pitcher than Mihashi he’ll let go of those feelings and move on.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> it's a happy ending in that they both move on after their practice match, but not a happily ever after for the two of them. oops.
> 
> expect more sports anime fics from me in the future, though i can't promise they'll be for oofuri? i've got a couple of haikyuu fics about ready to be published, i mean.


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